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Narco Cultura

Shaul Schwarz’s quietly subversive doc

Across the river from low-crime El Paso exists a hell on Earth called Juarez, ruled by Mexican drug cartels that either pay off or simply murder anyone who resists them.

Shaul Schwarz’s quietly subversive doc looks at the situation through the eyes of two contrasting men: An increasingly popular rapper whose narcocorrido songs glamorize the kidnappings and beheadings of the vicious mega-gangs, and a hard-working, often threatened crime scene technician who investigates the city’s 3000 annual murders, only to have his painstaking evidence ignored by his bribed superiors. Absorbing and depressing. Japanese title: Minagoroshi no Ballad: Mexico Mayaku Senso no Hikari to Yami. (103 min)